phillippe sands on 'hardball' - Cheney/Cohen

phillippe sands on 'hardball' (thnx Rimone) - via ATR

'...MATTHEWS: ...A passage in a new book, your book is called
"Lawless World." This other book by Bernard Trainor, "Cobra Two,"
describes a phone call from then Vice President Elect Cheney to then
Defense Secretary William Cohen regarding Iraq. This phone call came
soon after the debate by the Supreme Court when they gave the
election to President Bush after the Florida dispute.

Here`s what Cohen received, a call from the vice president, Cheney.
Here`s what he said. He said that he wanted to see one thing. He did
not want to see a tour of the world or all the potential threats to
our country, he wanted to get a briefing for the new president, his
partner, George W. Bush, on one topic, Iraq. That`s all he wanted."

I talked to Bill Cohen a number of times on this, and he said it was
breath taking. All the vice president wanted to know about, he didn`t
care about the world all around the globe, the only thing he cared
about was Iraq. He was already honing in on that decision in December
of 2000. What does that tell you?

SANDS: Well, I think it tells us that all of this is completely
consistent with the materials that emerged, the Downing Street Memo
of July 2002, and now this White House meeting memo of January 2003,
that an early decision was taken, and I think what it raises is
fundamental questions about competence.

It raises, in my view, fundamental questions of legality, but also
more importantly perhaps for the president`s purpose, incompetence...''parently mr cheney was in a hurry.

'parently mr cohen is getting chatty

brad has the video